Tuesday, March 29, 2011

It's times like these that the baseball fan in me does war with the Dodger fan in me. Am I looking forward to baseball? Hell yeah. Sadly, I may not have made it to a Dodger game last season, but part of me just feels more complete when baseball is being played.

The other part? That's the Dodger fan who can't quite get psyched about this year's patchwork squad. Of course there are bright spots, such as Kemp and Kershaw, and potential rookie surprises, like Gordon and DeJesus. But overall this doesn't feel like a winning team. Certainly not a playoff-bound one.

But that's when the baseball fan in me jumps up (pulling a hammy in the process) and says, It's the journey, not the destination. Only one team of thirty wins it all, so either, say, the Yankees or Red Sox will also be disappointed come October.

And as for the small chance the Dodgers exceed expectations? As they say, that's why they play the games. So let's enjoy them!

Ethier now says he would like to remain with the Dodgers for a long time to come, but he also qualified that statement."Yeah, as long as the organization is going in the right direction and is still committed to winning rather than things not going good for a year or two and then rebuilding or maybe going through a transition year," he said. "You hear it all the time, coaches and players saying they don't know how many opportunities you're going to get to be in the playoffs or on a winning team. I want to be somewhere [that provides] my best shot to win and win on an everyday basis. It feels like we have that here and we're moving that way, but that's kind of a wait-and-see basis."

Yes, he does appear to have a fair bit of disenchantment with the front office. What's poetic is that Billingsley could have felt exactly the same insecurity a year ago, when Ethier, Matt Kemp and Jonathan Broxton got two-year contracts but he didn't.

There's no doubt that a) the Dodgers aren't going to pay $10 million or more to players they think can't earn it, and b) Ethier is prone to melancholia and doomsday thinking. I think it's one thing to motivate himself to have the best possible year, on and off the field, that he possibly can. It's another thing for Ethier to think that the Dodgers aren't interested in keeping him around – especially if he performs the way he is capable of.